Poker tournaments are basically just like a normal poker ring game but with some differences. In poker tournaments you pay a fixed buy-in to participate and you get a certain quantity of poker chips. The poker chips you are given has no cash value and you are not allowed to play with any cash during the tournament. But in some tournaments you can buy more chips called re-buy.

Poker freerolls are tournaments with no entry fee or buy in though some poker freerolls requires you to have played or deposited money at some point before you can enter the tournament. In poker freerolls the prize pool is not an accumulation of the buy-ins from the participating players as it usually is in other tournaments. The money in the prize pool can come from a donation from the poker site, sponsorship etc.